


Phasers and Pheromones

by Fallynleaf



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Implied Kirk/Spock - Freeform, Transgender Christine Chapel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-18 10:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallynleaf/pseuds/Fallynleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uhura discovers T'Pring's existence when Spock starts going through pon farr. Uhura breaks up with him in the wake of this discovery, and then quickly finds herself placed in charge of a mission to rescue her ex's betrothed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phasers and Pheromones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femlash February, before Into Darkness came out. 
> 
> Somewhat inspired by two short ficlets I wrote ages ago: [Step Beyond Oblivion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/878570) and [What Little Girls are Made Of](http://archiveofourown.org/works/878546). Reading them beforehand is not essential, but I highly recommend it because they offer additional context.

After Uhura found out, is took a glance and five words to end it. For matters like this, even with extenuating circumstances, there was no explosive violence from Spock. The whole thing was conducted in a very logical and civil manner, with a matched stare and those five words, meticulously articulated so to not misconstrue their meaning: “I can’t do this anymore.”

Spock didn’t understand the emotion, but he understood the sense of betrayal it conveyed.

Then it was over. Done and dusted. Spock holed himself up in his quarters and tried to meditate his horniness away while Uhura signed herself up to head a rescue mission to save his wife.

“How’d the Vulcan bitch get herself captured by a Romulan ship, anyways?” Janice asked for maybe the third time, sighing. She uncrossed and crossed her legs in the cramped space afforded by the ship’s cabin.

“We don’t know. All of our information depends on Spock’s intuition for this one,” Chapel said. Her hair looked extraordinarily beautiful today, Uhura thought. And her makeup was done up extra pretty. Uhura exercised the fleeting thought that Chapel must’ve put the extra effort into her appearance for the sake of impressing Spock, but he had not shown up to send them off, and Chapel had not seemed any worse for the wear because of it. In fact, her whole being seemed to glow radiant, filling the shuttle with a refreshing self-confidence that was so atypical of her.

Janice seemed to soak it all up. When she did speak, her eyes were only on Chapel as she awaited an answer. The two of them orbited each other like twin stars.

Uhura’s attention returned to the fourth occupant of the shuttle. Gaila lounged more than sat in her seat, her head lulled to the side, eyes cast to stare through the window at the passing stars. “Are we there yet?” she asked. She matched Janice’s sigh with a breathy one of her own, the movement lifting her breasts to strain against her uniform. Uhura watched her and remembered fucking her. In the end, that’s all it had been: fucking. There was no “making love,” or “sleeping with.” Just flesh touching flesh and the bare mechanics of sex.

Without the special drugs, Gaila with her pheromones in this state would be nigh overpowering. Only this time it was Uhura and the others popping pills and Gaila was clean, her full Orion physiology making a graceful return.

“The Romulans are going to love me,” Gaila commented.

“I thought Romulans were unaffected by Orion pheromones,” Janice said.

“ _Vulcans_ are unaffected, yes. But laboratory tests suggest that Romulans are susceptible,” Chapel supplied.

“Figures that Vulcans wouldn’t be affected. Got logic stuck too tight up their asses. But the rest of it – “She turned, meeting Chapel’s gaze. “You’re saying that the whole plan relies on the accuracy of some lab experiment?”

“Yes, you’ve been debriefed on it, remember? Besides, I trust the results of this experiment. I know who supervised it.”

“Roger?” The corners of Janice’s mouth turned down in distaste.

“No. Me. It was _my_ experiment. Roger didn’t have a hand in this one. He was, he was – “ Chapel faltered, then swallowed and continued. “He was too busy with Andrea.”

“Chris, you measure up to far more than the newest buxom blond bimbo,” Janice said. She was the only one who could call Chapel “Chris.”

Gaila was watching Uhura. Uhura turned towards her. “Vulcans aren’t always as illogical as they’d like us to think,” Uhura said.

Gaila shrugged, a loose motion that bounced her curls off of her shoulders. “You’d know. You’re the only one of us who’s dated one.”

Uhura bristled, but knew it wasn’t worth it. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is getting that Vulcan off that ship.”

The ship’s console made an alert sound. Conversation stilled as everyone’s chairs swiveled to face the viewscreen. A lone ship flickered on the radar.

“There’s our bird,” Gaila said. “Aren’t you gonna fire on her, Nyota?”

“No. The goal is to lure them closer to the border while putting up the illusion of a fight and let them take us prisoner.”

“What if they just decide to kill us?” Gaila said flatly.

“They won’t. We may have valuable information. And if things go badly, we’re close enough to the border that it’ll get real muddy.”

“We’ll be fine as long as we get you on board, Gaila,” Chapel said.

The ship on the radar began to move. “Looks like we’ve been spotted,” Janice said. “I guess it’s started.”

“Janice, open a comm channel to the _Enterprise_ and have it send gibberish,” Uhura said, fingers poised on the navigation controls. It felt strange to listen to the sounds of someone else doing her job.

“Why are we sending gibberish?” Chapel asked.

“Just a precaution I thought wouldn’t hurt. They’ll think we’re transmitting information in code. Maybe it’ll help improve the odds that they’ll capture us instead of just killing us outright as soon as they realize that their weapons far outmatch us.”

“One can hope,” Janice said.

“They’re preparing to fire!” Chapel said.

Uhura nodded. She said nothing, letting her concentration settle only on the task at hand.

The Romulan ship took the first shot. The shuttle pitched to the side, artificial gravity thrown asunder, weathering the only hit they were safely allowed.

Uhura fired off the weapons banks, then moved to simulate evasive maneuvers. The Federation side of the border was an arm’s length too far away, not that it offered any sanctuary now.

“This is it. We’re too low on energy, the thrusters have given out,” Gaila said.

“Judgment time,” Janice whispered.

The warbird hovered in hesitation for a minute. Three. Then it turned, slowly, weapons banks swiveling around to face the shuttle dead-on like some all-seeing eye.

“They’re gonna fire,” Janice said flatly.

“Chapel leaned over the console, her mouth slightly parted in concentration, eyes flitting across the sensor readings. “Detecting an energy spike, enemy weapons preparing to active – “

Uhura reached for the controls at the comm station and broadcast to all nearby channels: “Stop! Do not fire! There are Romulan prisoners aboard!” she said in perfect Romulan. “Stop. There are Romulan prisoners aboard. Our captors are now incapacitated. We request to be beamed aboard and given sanctuary – “

Gaila’s eyes were trained on Uhura. “What are you doing?” she mouthed.

The warbird did not fire. Neither did it respond. The two ships stood in uneasy limbo for precious uncertain minutes.

Then a familiar tingling started in Uhura’s limbs, and she started to yell a warning for the others before her vocal cords dissolved into energy and she felt herself resolidifying.

The Romulan soldiers held raised guns.

“Who are – “

“Gaila – “

Gaila turned toward the soldiers, all four of them male. They all trained their guns on her, but did not shoot. Their grasp on their weapons clenched tight, then slackened, their pupils dilating irregularly.

The effect of Gaila’s pheromones seemed to have proved far more immediate than they’d assumed.

Gaila took a light step towards the Romulans. Then another, testing the limits of her control. They didn’t so much as blink in response, their eyes fixated on her yet at the same time staring at some distant point beyond her.

“Hey,” Gaila said. “Tell me your orders.”

“We’re to escort prisoners to the brig and the Romulan to be questioned by the commander,” they said in a slurred monotone.

“The commander will know something’s up if they respond with their voices like _that_ ,” Janice said. “So that part of the plan’s a wash, then.”

The Romulan soldiers wore no indication of understanding on their faces.

“Looks like your mods worked, Christine,” Gaila said. “Knocked ‘em right out.”

“What mods, Gaila?” Uhura asked, her voice low.

“You don’t know?” Chapel asked, incredulous. “Gaila said that you suggested I try and modify her pheromone output so that the effect will be more potent. It seems I succeeded.” Her voice tremored a little at the end.

Uhura rounded on Gaila, who was waving a hand in front of the soldiers’ faces in an attempt to provoke some sort of dazed response. “Gaila, we’re not – we’re not in the Academy anymore. This isn’t hiding some mouth-breather under your bed to try and sneak your sex partners covertly out of our room!”

“Hey, I just thought it’d help. And I thought you’d said something about possibly modifying my pheromones, anyways.”

“That was just speculation, not an order to use my name to get what you want!”

“Lieutenant, I’d love to hear some more details about your wild Academy years, but I think we might have a more immediate problem,” Janice cut in.

Footsteps clicked against the hallway floor outside, the sound growing louder and more pronounced as they neared the room. Sweeping past Uhura, Gaila took position near the entryway.

“Gaila, order the other soldiers out, first,” Uhura hissed.

“Oh, right. You four – come over here.” Gaila beckoned over her shoulder. The soldiers stumbled towards her, and she directed them around the corner, telling them to reveal nothing about the state of the hostages from the ship.

The soldiers exited, and there were some exclamations of surprise from the hallway, and then a buzz of confusion. Then Gaila strode through the door, Uhura at her ankles.

Immediately, the adrenaline surge hit the soldiers, and one of them, who held his gun pointed at the ground, lifted his arm and fired off a shot as he flexed his fingers in response to the adrenaline and involuntarily squeezed the trigger. Gaila yelped, but the blast missed her by a fair margin.

“I was going to warn you: be careful of their initial contact with the pheromones. The increase in adrenaline may be dangerous,” Chapel said. “Especially since the effect is so sudden.”

“Thanks for the warning in advance,” Janice said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t – I didn’t know. I did laboratory tests, of course, but we don’t have a full, live Romulan to test on, so I had no idea how the increased pheromone influence would manifest,” Chapel said.

“Just another reason to get this done fast, then,” Uhura said, her voice short. “We’ll find the Vulcan, disable the captain, and get out before the ship moves too far away from the border.”

“This is something I thought I’d never say, but thank god for patriarchy,” Janice said. “I’ll bet there’s not a single woman aboard this ship besides us and the Vulcan.”

“What about the anti-drug? Do we have extra doses of that in case the super-pheromones make it wear off faster than assumed?” Uhura asked.

“I have enough for each of us to take another dose. However, the second dose might last much less than the first dose because we’ve all had time to build up a tolerance,” Chapel supplied.

“Chris, if you need another dose after that, take mine,” Janice said. “I can deal with headaches, even if it’s one bitch of a migraine. We need you in full control of your own mind and not zombified like those soldiers.”

Uhura had forgotten that Chapel’s biologically male body meant that she had male physiology as well.

“Are we ready to get this done?” Gaila asked.

“Yes, we need to get going. But remember: move slowly, and more importantly, move cautiously. Gaila’s pheromones may have a near instantaneous effect, but they still require some degree of proximity to take effect,” Uhura said. “And none of us can remotely pass for Romulan.”

“Except for your voice,” Gaila said. “That was brilliant, by the way.”

Uhura looked at her. “Alright, let’s go,” she said.

For the first two hallways, they were lucky and encountered no one. After that, the next section of the ship was a mess.

Gaila rounded the corner first, quickly settling into her sudden unexpected position of leader. She wore it well, Uhura thought. Gaila as an individual was typically unwaveringly confident, with the sole exception of Gaila after taking the pheromone suppression drugs that were a necessity at the Academy. But here, striding through these hallways, there was no ghost of that too-familiar image of a scared and hurting woman curled on her side, orange hair spilling onto Uhura’s lap, tears catching on Uhura’s legs. Here, there was only Gaila the Orion, slave-master and dominator of men.

A dull throb beat in Uhura’s head. _So soon?_ she thought.

The soldiers rushed to close in on them. Gaila’s voice lifted, and they fell back.

“Gaila, ask them where the Vulcan is,” Uhura said. “We need to finish this.”

“You, tell me where the Vulcan is,” Gaila said to one soldier. She laughed.

“She’s with the commander,” the soldier slurred.

“Where’s the commander?”

“Going to the brig. To question the new prisoners.”

“Take us there.”

The Romulan started down the hallways, moving at a dazed pace that failed to quicken even after a direct order from Gaila.

“Before we enter the brig, we all need to take another dose,” Uhura said. “We need to be clear-headed for this.”

“It’s too soon!” Chapel said. “The next dose won’t last long enough to get us back to the _Enterprise_.”

“I can drive with a headache.”

“I can’t,” Chapel said, hesitant.

“Hey, you,” Gaila shouted at the Romulan. “Warn us before we get to the brig.” She turned and smirked at Uhura over her shoulder. “I feel really good,” she sighed. “Better than I’ve felt in ages.”

“I’ve had better days,” Uhura said.

“I’ve had plenty of worse ones,” Gaila said, her voice falling flat.

“Hey, Chris, clear up. You’re fading out on me,” Janice said, clutching Chapel’s shoulders, directing Chapel’s drifting gaze into her own eyes. Chapel blinked, then shook her head, closing her eyes briefly.

“You’ve got to take your shot now, honey,” Janice said.

“Okay.” Chapel took a shaking breath then retrieved her hypo and tilted her neck to apply it to herself. Janice’s eyes followed the line of her skin.

“We approach the brig,” the Romulan soldier said.

“I hope your head’s cleared up enough, Chapel,” Uhura said. “Prick me.”

Chapel obliged. The pain was brief but refreshing. Uhura rolled her neck, placed her hand at the ready on her phaser, and waited.

Janice held up a hand when Chapel turned towards her. “Save it. I don’t need it.” Chapel eyed her skeptically but tucked the hypospray away.

“Let’s grab this bitch and get out of here,” Uhura said. She caught Gaila’s eye, then moved in step beside her. They entered the brig together.

The first thing Uhura saw was the bright flash of phasers.

The second thing was Gaila falling, even as Uhura twisted, as she lifted her arm and activated her own weapon, as she subsequently shifted her attention to spare Gaila the only glance she could.

Gaila wasn’t dead. She could very well be dying, her face contorted with its too-familiar look of pain, her body crumpled. But Gaila wasn’t dead. And Uhura had a job to do.

“Enhanced pheromones. Biological warfare. Clever.” The voice was unfamiliar and distinctly feminine. Uhura turned, and the woman stood up from her chair.

“But I am not a man,” the Romulan Commander said. Her uniform caught the light and shimmered magenta. She strode forward, tall black boots tapping a clear beat against the floor as she moved. Uhura’s gun hand lifted again; the Commander’s own hand lifted to match it, her own phaser at the ready. “Careful. Unlike the rest, I still have my wits about me,” she said.

“Give it up. We outnumber you,” Uhura said, her eyes narrowing.

“Do you?” The Commander tossed a glance over Uhura’s shoulder. Uhura’s eyes flickered, and she took in an image of Chapel crouched over Gaila.

There’s still two of us,” Uhura said.

“And two of us,” the Commander said. Another figure emerged, steps brusque and posture poised elegantly, hair woven into an updo adorned with beads, body draped in a silver dress.

“Well, shit,” Janice muttered at Uhura’s side.

“T’Pring,” Uhura said. It was almost a greeting.

T’Pring inclined her head. Her eyes returned to Uhura, and the expression in them was singularly so alike to Spock and so different from him that Uhura felt coldly unnerved.

“T’Pring,” Uhura repeated. “We’re here to save both your own life and Spock’s.”

“No,” T’Pring said.

“You mean you _want_ to die?” Janice asked.

“No. Spock may die. I will not.”

“I don’t think pon farr works that way, bitch.”

“I believe the Terran saying goes ‘there is more than one way to skin a cat,” the Commander said. “Or rather, there’s more than one way to fuck a Vulcan.” With her free hand, she reached towards T’Pring and touched two fingers to T’Pring’s face, drawing them down the surface of T’Pring’s cheek.

“I am no longer undergoing pon farr,” T’Pring said.

“And so the situation stands,” the Commander purred. “It seems we’re at a standstill.”

“Why?” Uhura asked.

“Because all four of us have guns, Love.”

“Why did you do it? Any of it?” Uhura asked T’Pring.

“Because my people were lost. We were confused. We were hurting.” Her eyes drifted to meet the Commander’s gaze. “The logical choice was to attack now to prevent a future that will never come.”

“That doesn’t sound logical.”

“It was not. We attacked. We fell. More of my race died, all for the sake of petty, illogical revenge. I was the only one left. And now my eyes have turned towards our true enemy.”

“Who – “

T’Pring’s hand lifted. For a moment, Uhura thought she was preparing to use her gun. But her hand was empty, fingers closed and index finger raised to point at Uhura. She said nothing. But her meaning was clear enough in the gesture alone.

“You blame _us_?” Uhura asked. “Bullshit. We tried to _prevent_ the destruction of Vulcan, remember?”

“Tried and failed,” the Commander said. “Just as you will one day try and fail to prevent the destruction of Romulus. Funny how patterns work. One’d think you’d eventually learn.”

“You want this to be a fight.” Uhura took a step to the side, watching as the Commander moved to match her, the two of them circling like a pair of carrion birds. T’Pring stood still. Rigid.

“Do I?” the Commander toyed with her phaser in her hands, never letting the weapon leave her full control, her eyes remaining steady on Uhura. “You assume much, Terran.”

Uhura glanced around her, taking in the layout of the brig, of the Commander and T’Pring’s positioning. There were Romulan soldiers present, standing there glass-eyed, falling deeper and deeper into their stupor as Gaila’s pheromones continued to dissipate throughout the room.

“What else am I supposed to be assuming? You’ve got a weapon trained on me,” Uhura said.

“I’ve found that Terrans tend to respond better to guns.”

“I’ve found that Romulans tend to respond better to Orion pheromones,” Janice cut in.

“So does your boyfriend. Even though he seems to think he’s a woman.” The Commander’s eyes flicked to Chapel’s form crouched over Gaila, Chapel already beginning to appear woozy, her body wobbling a little.

Janice’s phaser flashed as Uhura leapt to disarm her.

The weapon clattered to the floor and slid a few feet away. Uhura folded Janice’s arms behind her back.. “She’s baiting you!” Uhura hissed.

“Chris isn’t bait!” Janice spat.

The Commander was crumpled against the wall, stunned.

“You misunderstood,” T’Pring said calmly.

“You damn well know that she meant every word,” Janice said.

“Yes. But you misunderstood my application of the term ‘enemy.’ As the Commander said, you assume much.”

“Uhura,” Chapel said dizzily. “It’s Gaila.”

Uhura backed away from T’Pring, wary, then turned in Chapel’s direction only to feel cold fingers culr around her wrists, an applied pressure slipping her phaser from her grasp in the same instant. Uhura whirled around and watched T’Pring dance away, her heeled footsteps light and deliberate. Uhura had forgotten Vulcan strength, even in a woman appearing as fragile as T’Pring.

Disarmed, she rushed for the corner and crouched beside Gaila. Almost at once, the pheromones swarmed her mind.

The sensation was fingernails to skin and sheets between the teeth. It was unpretty sex, the kind that felt the best, the kind that split open your head and spilled your insides onto the bed. It was the strength of Gaila’s pheromones unleashed during an orgasm multiplied tenfold. It was one true bitch of a migraine.

“The shot, the shot!” Janice said, her voice frenzied. She grabbed Chapel’s head and tipped it up to stare into her eyes. “Love, we need you sane right now!”

Chapel fumbled for the hypo. Janice held her hand steady as she applied it to her neck. Janice was crying, the tears cutting a wet swathe down an angry red patch on her cheeks. She was crying in pain, Uhura realized. Then she noticed a red droplet beading down the side of Janice’s face from her ear.

Chapel saw it, too. “Janice, you’ve been exposed to the heightened pheromones too long.” She took a breath. “We need – we need to give Gaila the suppressant drug.”

Uhura examined Gaila’s unconscious body. “Now?” she asked. “The stress will kill her!”

“If we don’t, if we – “ Chapel sucked in another breath, trying to keep herself talking. “If we don’t, her pheromones will kill the rest of us.”

“Let’s move, first. Take her to the ship and do it there, not here.”

“She’s not exactly stable, Nyota. We can’t risk moving her.”

“Then give it to her. Dammit!”

Uhura’s eyes were on Gaila’s face when Gaila came to with a great gasp. Gaila’s gaze wavered, then settled on Uhura, her eyes shining with fear. Then the first spasm hit, and Gaila squeezed her eyes tight as her body convulsed, limbs knocking into Chapel and Janice. Uhura did the only thing she could, always the only thing she could, and put her arms around Gaila and held her tightly.

“Shh, it’ll be alright,” she said, her voice hoarse.

Gaila moaned, and Uhura masked it with the first strand of a song in Swahili, letting her voice steadily build until the tremors of pain fell away and left only the words and her breath.

Gaila’s body was hot and clammy in her hands. Uhura forgot the presence of the others. She forgot that she was on an enemy ship. Gaila sobbed, and Uhura didn’t, because she knew if she cried now, she’d no longer be able to sing, and if her voice left her, they would have nothing.

Then it was over. Gaila thrashed one final time, and then her body fell still and limp in Uhura’s arms. Uhura smoothed Gaila’s hair back, then untangled herself and straightened her spine. Getting to her feet, Uhura’s attention went to the Commander first, found her still stunned against the wall, then drifted toward the lone other figure in the room and found that T’Pring was regarding her with a stone-smooth expression on her face.

Aware of her disheveled appearance in stark contrast to T’Pring’s manicured perfection, Uhura laughed. “Look at us, T’Pring. Humanity’s a mess. Aren’t you glad you’re free of Spock, now? He stinks of it.”

“Leave now,” T’Pring said. “Go back to your ship.” She turned away.

“Glad to see that you’ve decided to take pity on your enemies.”

“You are not the enemy. Now, go. I have power here. You may walk free.”

Uhura stared with narrowed eyes for a moment, then started back towards Gaila and the others. Janice had fallen unconscious, and Chapel seemed to be in the process of waking from her daze. Gaila had more or less stabilized.

Uhura looked back over her shoulder at T’Pring. “What about _her_?” she asked, tipping her head in the direction of the Commander.

“She will recover. I will remove her memory of these events before she wakes.”

“No,” Uhura said.

T’Pring blinked. It was the closest to an expression of surprise Uhura would ever see her wear.

“No, let her remember. Let her know what she’s up against if just four Starfleet officers can take down an entire Romulan warbird from the inside. Call it illogical, if you must.”

T’Pring inclined her head. “Very well. I will let her remember.”

Uhura returned to Gaila and reached to hoist her up. Gaila moaned as she did so, her eyes flickering open. “Hey,” she said weakly. “I missed waking up to your face like that. We should do this again sometime.”

Uhura rolled her eyes and maneuvered Gaila’s arm over her shoulder, supporting her as she got up and stood. Beside them, Chapel had full-on lifted Janice in her arms.

“Let’s get to the ship,” Uhura said. They moved to leave the room. As she did, Uhura glanced one last time over her shoulder at T’Pring, at the woman who would’ve been Spock’s wife.

T’Pring had moved to kneel beside the Commander, her posture still elegant and unbent. She was staring at the Commander in a way that Uhura almost interpreted as tenderness, if this had been anyone other than T’Pring. T’Pring reached over and touched the Commander’s lips, then the side of her neck. “It took just one Vulcan,” T’Pring said. She lifted her eyes and met Uhura’s stare. “To take down an entire Romulan warbird from the inside.”

Uhura left.

 

Upon their return to the _Enterprise_ , Spock awaited their arrival with Kirk and McCoy and the others. When Spock saw that T’Pring was not with them, he turned around and returned to his room, his steps disoriented. Uhura did not follow. She thought she might, if she absolutely must but Kirk coughed, rubbed at his neck, and said that Spock’s pon farr was no longer an issue.

That night, Uhura found Gaila sprawled out on her bed. “Get out,” she said wearily.

“Nyota, we need to talk,” Gaila said.

“You don’t do just _talking_ well, Gaila.” Uhura folded her arms.

“I know, it’s just – “ Gaila sighed. “Nyota, can we just be fucking again? I miss you.”

“No,” Uhura said immediately.

Gaila sat up, running a hand through her hair. She was silent for a few minutes, her eyes on the bedsheets as she toyed with the fabric in her hands. “In all of my fucks, no one’s ever sung to me, Nyota,” she said after awhile. “Just you. But not even you sang after we started fucking.”

“And there’s your problem, Gaila,” Uhura said. “ _Our_ problem,” she corrected.

“Then could we try fucking without… actually fucking?” Gaila asked.

“Could you do that? Have you ever had a relationship that worked like that before, Gaila?” Uhura asked. She took a seat on the edge of the bed beside her.

“No. But I dunno, maybe it’s worth trying.”

“Okay. Then we can try. In the morning, at least. God, I haven’t slept in over a day.”

“Can I… stay with you?” Gaila asked hesitantly.

Uhura looked at her. Then she rubbed at her temples, feeling the night of sleep deprivation catch up to her. “Alright,” she sighed.

“Christine’s in sickbay with Janice,” Gaila murmured as they crawled under the sheets together.

“How is that surprising? Chapel works there, remember?” Uhura closed her eyes.

“Janice kissed her. She woke up, and kissed her.”

Uhura smiled, then let it fade. Gaila started talking again, and Uhura started to hum. Gaila quieted at once, and Uhura let the sound build until it became lyrics, flowing into a song to take them asleep.

 _Better to wield words than phasers_ , was Uhura’s last conscious thought before she fell into the night, darker and brighter than the stars.


End file.
